Ministry urges caution as monkey dies from yellow fever

The Min­istry of Health has con­firmed a case of yel­low fever in a de­ceased Red Howler mon­key fol­low­ing lab­o­ra­to­ry test­ing, while as­sur­ing the pub­lic that there are cur­rent­ly no re­port­ed hu­man in­fec­tions.

In a state­ment, the Min­istry ex­plained that yel­low fever is a vi­ral dis­ease trans­mit­ted by in­fect­ed mos­qui­toes, in­clud­ing Aedes ae­gyp­ti. Non-hu­man pri­mates, such as Red Howler mon­keys, are con­sid­ered im­por­tant ear­ly in­di­ca­tors of the virus’ pres­ence in the en­vi­ron­ment.

Health of­fi­cials stressed that al­though no hu­man cas­es have been iden­ti­fied, the con­firmed find­ing sig­nals the need for in­creased vig­i­lance and proac­tive pre­ven­tion mea­sures.

The Min­istry said sur­veil­lance and vec­tor con­trol ac­tiv­i­ties have al­ready been con­duct­ed in the af­fect­ed ar­eas and will con­tin­ue as part of on­go­ing mon­i­tor­ing ef­forts.

Yel­low Fever typ­i­cal­ly presents with­in three to six days af­ter in­fec­tion. Ear­ly symp­toms in­clude sud­den fever, chills, headache, back pain, nau­sea and vom­it­ing. In more se­vere cas­es, jaun­dice may de­vel­op.

Res­i­dents are be­ing urged to take steps to re­duce ex­po­sure to mos­qui­toes and lim­it po­ten­tial trans­mis­sion.